Trip the geek fantastic at the home of #RealTimeChem

Milestones and RealTimeChem Week 2014

The Blog lives! I have been away from it for a little too long. To be fair, I’ve been busy with work and life in general, both of which haven’t left much time for writing. However, I aim to get back in the saddle in the next few months. I’ve got a few ideas regarding #RealTimeChem and creating a hub on the blog for chemists to come to and find useful resources. First priority though it to update the FAQ for #RealTimeChem for general use so that newcomers know what it’s all about. I’ve almost completed so fingers crossed it’ll be up in the next few weeks.

While Doctor Galactic and the Lab Coat Cowboy has been off the interweb, the Twitter account has continued to document some great #RealTimeChem from across the world and last week it reached a significant milestone by gaining it’s 2000th follower (which is still less than Chemistry Cat…). It’s also past 9,500 Tweets and closing in on the magical 10,000th tweet (we’ve actually Tweeted more times than both Nature Chemistry and Chemistry World, but notably not more than infamous tweet splurgers Angewandte Chemie), the vast majority of these tweets are retweets of actual Real-time chemistry in action. There’s been a fantastic amount of variety in location and content of these Tweets and I’m always excited to log in each day and see what everyone’s been up to.

When I started the feed I didn’t believe it’d ever reach such a number and it’s a testament to the fantastic chemistry community on Twitter that it’s got this far. So thanks to everyone who has joined in so far and I hope you’ll continue to share your chemistry and have fun engaging with other chemists around the world. I am open to any ideas and suggestions from the community for what #RealTimeChem can do for them, so feel free to email me at RealTimeChem@gmail.com.

Certainly, the second annual RealTimeChem week will be happening this year. It will likely run slightly differently. There will probably be some new prizes if I can snag some. The question is this…when should it be? As usual this shall be decided by you, the community.

I’ve been a late on the game so April is a little bit out of the running this year, as the event needs some proper prep time. You can vote for up to 3 different months and if you have any more specific suggestions for the timing of the event, then please sound off in the comments section.

I would have voted for April and October. I still think it should be held twice a year right after the ACS national meetings. Incidentally, it’s also right after the Chemistry Society of Japan’s national meetings (which are after the ACS meetings).